


Beautiful, Dangerous

by chillydown



Category: Confessions of Dorian Gray
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Other, brief appearance by Undine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 12:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12410034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillydown/pseuds/chillydown
Summary: Dorian Gray is beautiful. Dorian Gray is dangerous. Simon Darlow is obsessed.





	Beautiful, Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [still_lycoris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/gifts).



The first time Simon lay eyes on Charlie, he thought he was one of the most beautiful men he had ever seen. He couldn’t help it: he just stared, ignoring the jibes of Mark and Fiona, ignoring the fact that he knew he was staring at this perfect man and this perfect man knows he’s staring at him. And then some time later, he thought Charlie was one of the most dangerous men he’s ever met. He’s desperately trying to talk the man off of the roof, listening to Charlie (no, Dorian?) ramble about sins, about something in the cocaine, about how he’s Dorian Gray.

All in all, it was a terrible first impression. But all in all, it made Dorian memorable. And it made it so he couldn’t get the man out of his head. Dorian vanished from his life some time later. But Simon couldn’t stop thinking of the man. That beautiful, dangerous man.

So imagine Simon’s surprise when that beautiful, dangerous man shows up in the background of one of his mum’s holiday pics, taken on a visit to Greece, back in the 1970s. And imagine Simon’s surprise when one of his friends, renting some expensive flat over in Kew, recognizes the picture, saying that the beautiful, dangerous man looks weirdly like the guy who owns his building. 

He voices his suspicions to Undine one night, years after that incident with the cocaine, years after he thought he no longer had Dorian Gray in his life anymore.

“I mean,” he continues, taking a pause from brushing his teeth. They had a double vanity, with the two sides distinctly marked: Undine’s beauty supplies on one side, Simon’s razor and shaving supplies on the other. Everything in the apartment was so distinctly marked, as if they were two flatmates living together, not even bothering to play at married couple. The only thing they shared was the bed, and that was out of necessity instead of anything else: the guest room wasn’t furnished yet and the sofa was too uncomfortable.

“I mean, you’ve seen the pictures. Doesn’t he look exactly like that guy from the band?” Doesn’t he sound exactly like that guy from the band? Simon had found the single in an Oxfam shop, a beat up record, scratched to hell and back, first single from the band Dorian Gray and the Hedonists. The quality was shit, but as soon as he played it, Simon knew. That was his voice. That was Dorian. And that was him fronting a mod band in the 1960s, sounding exactly like the beautiful, dangerous man that Simon talked off the ledge all those nights ago.

Maybe he _was_ the Dorian Gray.

Undine gives him a look, the look she gave Simon when he was talking about someone she didn’t know or something she didn’t understand. It is a look of annoyance. “I didn’t think I had to say this, but he’s not the same guy. The guy’s probably your guy’s father or something.”

But he kept listening and kept searching, popping off to the archives to look up newspaper records And one night, after he spent all afternoon emailing with someone from the New York Department of Archives and History, researching a few stray references in the correspondences of Dorothy Parker, Undine gives him that look again.

“Simon. You’re obsessed.”

Perhaps. Maybe he was. He even agreed to take on Dorian’s account once he had started moving up the ladder, making gains in the financial world, just out of a small hope, a small burning desire that he would see the man again, the man who gave him some of the most wonderful nights in his life as well as one of the most terrifying. That small hope was met with realism and pragmatism. Of course he wouldn’t see Dorian again. He hadn’t seen the man in years. He’s probably off, somewhere else, finding another impressionable young banker to seduce then fuck then leave. Simon could hope all he wanted, but he would never see the man again and that’s that.

But then, when Victoria Lowell shows up at his door, to make Simon an offer that he wouldn’t want to refuse even if he could, he realizes just how wrong he was.

Perhaps he would see Dorian again. And if he did, would the man would be just as beautiful and as dangerous as he remembered? Of course he would. He had to be.


End file.
